On Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early. We decided to have breakfast first thing in the morning. For breakfast we went to a restaurant that was on the corner right by Coby's home. We had borek which is a bread with a noodle in it. Sometimes they add meat or there is powered sugar on top. Going to a restaurant in Turkey is so cheap. What would cost at least $40 in the US costs around $10 in Turkey.
Immediately after that we walked to the ferry (a 20 to 25 minute walk going fast) so we go over to the European side of Turkey. We walked to the Topkapi Palace. This is a very large palace that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultan for around 400 years during the time period of 1465-1856 during there 624 year reign.
This palace was used for the royal residents there, but it also was set for royal entertainment. I have never seen anything like this before. This is the first and only time I have ever got the head phones with more information regarding the area.
We first toured where the Harem. This contained around 400 rooms. This was the home of the sultan's mother as well the wives of the sultan and their families. This area also housed the concubines. Many of the rooms were breathtaking and something I have never seen before in my life.
The walls were so ornate and tiled beautifully
The ceilings were amazing!
Above is a place where they washed their bodies. In front of every mosque there is something like this. Before the men go inside to pray they wash their feet and become clean. It was fascinating to watch this happen several times a day.
Above is a view of one of the court yards overlooking the city.
While in this palace I learned you don't make eye contact with men. It is considered very flirtatious among other things. Coby let me know this after I had smiled at a man. It is my natural to make eye contact and smile at pretty much anyone so this was a hard habit to break. Also when most of the people take pictures they don't smile. I witnessed this many times. Americans as a whole don't visit Turkey. It is very rare and most of the tourists that come are from Europe or Asia. Because of this we had many people who stared at us. Coby seems to know how to fit in better where he lives, but Kara and I stuck out. Coby even had us wear dark clothes with hardly any jewelry and we still stuck out. Oh well.
More of the views from the court yards.
Even I sometimes didn't smile as much as I saw others doing. There was often a line of people waiting to get their picture taken.
After spending many hours touring the palace we decided to go to the Museum that was below. This was a museum that Coby had never attended before. One mistake we made was not eating before we went into the museum. I was starving by the time we left.
The Archaeological Museum is the HUGEST museum I have ever been to. It is like having three museums in one. One museum (in the main building) is the
Archaeological Museum, then there is the Museum of the Ancient Orient and then the Museum of Islamic Art. This museum has over one million objects that represent most of the eras in civilization in world history. Below are some of the pictures we took while in this museum.
These were what many of the the Sarcophagus looked like.
After being in the museum for many hours ( there were many more hours we could spend) we were tired and hungry, mostly I was. Sometime having to stop and eat is such a pain. We went out on the waterfront and ate some yummy fish sandwiches and Kara had her first doner.
The humid climate did wonders on my hair. It was a crazy mess every day, but I tried to embrace it. :)
We were going to go to the Spice Bazaar but we were so tired that we decided against it. We walked around the waterfront during the late afternoon/early evening. One thing I need to mention is what crazy drivers there are in Turkey. Istanbul has around 20 million people that live there. There is always tons of people every where and I mean in every little place imaginable. Many of the people don't have cars so they walk everywhere. There are so many forms of public transportation there. Often you need to cross the street and crossing the street requires a lot of talent--seriously. Cars are coming in all directions and whoever is the most gutsy in the car or person on the street is the one who determines if you can cross the street. Everyone is honking there horn constantly. Honking your horn in Turkey is so different than honking it in America. Often people honk their horn to let you know you can cross the street, or that they are behind you. If you aren't careful there are cars every where. Where ever you turn there are cars. Coby would suddenly start crossing the street and we would have to follow. Most of the time I thought it was unsafe to cross. If anything gave me anxiety while in Turkey it was crossing the street.
Finally I would think it was okay to cross the street and Coby would tell me don't walk now. Just when I thought I was getting the way the traffic worked I realized I didn't get anything. Crazy.
After looking around we decided to have some Baklava at the most famous place in Turkey to have it. There were delicious but my favorite there was at a different restaurant.
After looking around this area we took the underground tram home. Wherever we went each day it seemed we were at least an hour or more away from the apartment. So when we left we were gone all
day.
After being on the tram we walked home and visited and then we were all too tired. When we left for Turkey it was 9 hours ahead of Utah. So we had jet lag, but we tried to pretend we didn't but it didn't always work!
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